Ants on a Log
by Glum n Dumb Skittery
Summary: [rated for slash, light language]The celery sticks are neatly cut in half, slathered with peanut butter and drizzled with raisins. But I understand. This is the only way he knows how to forgive — through the stomach. Snittery.


**A/N:** (GUH - I LIVE. EXCEPT NOT.) …CSI fics currently own my soul. But adorable three-year olds inspired me anyway. **All standard disclaimers apply.** Enjoy, darlings.

Ants on a Log

This is all my fault.

He's shelving books like they cracked one too many "YOUR MOM!" jokes, slamming them into their places, barely glancing at the periodicals on their spines. His lips are set tightly together, forehead smooth in concentrated calmness, trying to keep up the front that he's really alright. He hasn't looked at me since we both punched in.

Sufficient to say, Caleb is pissed. No — not pissed, if he was pissed the whole goddamn library would know by now. No. He's giving me the cold shoulder. And that takes much more than being ticked off.

I shift my weight until I'm leaning against the cart, the dog-eared novels and plastic-bound hardbacks lay complacently on the metal racks. They mock me in their silence and stillness, pushing me further on edge — Caleb is never this quiet. The damn, spastic books laugh at me. This is not my day.

Cal gets up, finished restocking the bottom shelf with returned books. We're in the fiction section, surrounded by the contemporary tomes from H to M. Hegi and Hemingway to Maguire and Murakami. His nametag swings on the thin black lanyard around his neck as he runs a hand distractedly though his hair, eyebrows are furrowed. I turn my back on him as he moves down the aisle, pulling his almost empty cart of returned items behind him, and sigh in frustration at it all.

Screw it. I ditch the cart and make my way to the backroom, intent on anything vaguely edible to quell my stress. Sarah's already there on an early break, her timecard tossed onto the table, mixed in with the old magazines and scotch tape dispensers. She quirks a brow upon my entrance.

"You're skulking," she notes aloud.

"I love you too, dear friend." I make my way to the mini-fridge, tripping over someone's mud-caked New Balance shoes along the way.

"…Cal's kind of mute today."

I grunt a monotone response of agreement with my face parallel to someone's Tupperware. The saran-wrapped bagel next to it has been in here for a week or two and is starting to grow its own vegetable garden. I close the door.

Sarah's tilting backwards on her chair, balancing on the back legs shakily. She looks like she's not sure she should say what she really wants to say. I deadpan her million-questions-a-minute stare. She takes it as consent and her seat lands safely back on to the floor. "It's not like the Snitch."

I roll my eyes at the nickname. Our head librarian, Collin, was scatterbrained and antisocial. He dubbed us all with nicknames, figuring if he didn't know our names, he could make them up as he went along. Cal became Snitch, mostly because he was the quickest when running errands for Collin or disappeared altogether, thus the Harry Potter/Quidditch allusion, hardy har. Sarah was Mustardseed, partly due to her addiction to condiments, as well as her petite, fae-reminiscent qualities. Who can really resist Shakespeare anyway, right? And then Collin had to go and name me Skittery. No one knows why. I have no literary reference. I fail at life.

"Well, if he talks to you, by all means, celebrate without me," I quip, doing my best not to snap at the girl.

Sarah eyes me quizzically. "Zach, hon, I'm just saying… Wait, all this has something to do with you, then?"

I think I stop breathing. The want, the need to tell her leaps from where it's been conspiring with my stomach to form an ulcer, all the way up to my heart, pounding frantically with it against my insides, trying to break free. I only realize I'd been staring once the stinging in my watering eyes registers, and I have to tell myself to start functioning again, starting with blinking. The synapses connect and I snap out of it.

No. I won't tell her. I can't.

She's shrinking uncomfortably beneath my prolonged stare. I swallow hard and feebly shrug, already heading back out the door. "I haven't the slightest idea."

_Liar_.

Images of my hand reaching out to touch the scar that coils up from his collar, ensnaring the back of his neck; of unexpected heat blossoming in both our cheeks; of his face suddenly a lot closer to mine than it should be; of minutes that seemed like an eternity; of _want_; of breaking away and making an exit without so much as a goodbye.

_Don't think about it. Walk away. Just keep breathing. Just… forget_.

I try to pretend it doesn't hurt as much as it really does. I'm an idiot.

----

It's Friday evening, seven PM, and thank god the library closes early at the end of the working week. Any more of Cal's avoidance and one-man blizzard, Sarah's less than stealthy "tell-me-what's-going-on-NOW-bitch" patented glances, and Collin's ordering around the new recruits, who gained new names with every command — well, let's just make it simple and clean: I love you, God. Thank you for keeping me from overly frolicking in the after school life of a working senior.

"Zach."

…Aw, crap. God? Yeah, You. I take it back. You suck.

I try to see just what the greatest amount of angled steps it can possibly take me to turn around and face my doom. I can tell he's exasperated by now and keep my eyes on the asphalt.

"Zach, we gotta talk."

Are you sure? 'Cause I'm fine with just going somewhere to slit my wrists, instead.

"Just get in your car and give me a ride home. This way you don't have to worry about me driving us full speed into a tree or anything, okay?" But his tone is anything but humorous. He's dead serious.

Jesus Christ, Cal. I'm _sorry_.

I'm burning a hole through a piece of flat, gray wadded-up gum on the ground. "What about your bike, man?"

"Don't be an ass."

I get in the car.

My hand lingers too long on the ignition and the engine grinds before properly turning over. I barely glance in the rearview mirror. I just want to get out of this parking lot and to Cal's house at Star Wars-patented warpspeed, laws of physics be damned.

He's quiet as we pull up to the first stoplight, the Vandals on my stereo the fatal remnant of my sister having borrowed my car. His shoulders are stiff and rounded, as though he's pulling them closer to his body so as to stretch the distance further between us. His eyes are focused intently out his side window, hands are clenched, one to each leg, fisting themselves into white knuckles set against wrinkled jeans. I can't even look at him except out of the corner of my eye. The light changes and I press harder on the accelerator than I should. His stare stays locked on the world outside reduced to a blur.

----

Cal shoulders his messenger bag, the plastic Pikachu key chain on the back zipper has a vapid expression on his red-cheeked face, pressed up against his hip. I try not to think about it. He's slouched over, lanky frame bent, with one arm on his open passenger door, the other on the roof of the car. He's standing on the curb, looking at me for the first time all day.

"Well? Are you coming or not?"

"Um…?"

Final answer, Zach? Yes, Regis. Now kill me. Shoot me now, before I find out that I am not indeed a millionaire, and never will be.

He gets impatient, sighs disgustedly, and leans in, over the vacated passenger seat and pulls the key from the ignition. My foot's already on the brake; I bring the car into park in his driveway. The car's crooked and his parent's are going to be pissed at me now, too. I try to pretend I don't care.

I follow Cal up the front lawn and wait uncomfortably as he unlocks the door and walks in without so much as a glance back to check if I'm following. His mom's Maltese is a white mop of dog on the sofa, prominent against the faded purple quilt draped over the back of the cushions. The house is heavy with the lack of movements that means no one else is home. The dread in my limbs weighs me down. I don't want to be here.

Cal throws his bag near the shoe rack by the door, his beat-up Adidas already toed-off and socks stripped, lying in a pile near everything else he's thrown down. He glances up at me, but quickly and still with that hint of coldness, before heading down the hall towards his room with another expressionless, "Come on."

I slip out of my Vans and leave them and my backpack slouched next to his own discarded items. My bag leans against his, creased along the top pocket and sagging with its own weight. It looks sad and deflated next to his bag, zipper undone to expose sundry folders and papers, the edge of a paperclip creeping up out of a green three-prong. I follow the echo of his footsteps through the house. I've got nothing left to lose.

He's in his room, the curtains drawn tightly around the windowpanes, the streetlights' illumination filtering weakly through the thick material. It's completely dark, except for a small camping lantern perched crookedly on his tangled bedspread, the lit bulb cheery and unguarded. I stand awkwardly in the doorway and watch Cal's shadow figure moving chairs and his nightstand near his bookshelf and bed, quick and silent.

He doesn't even look at me as he brushes past to escape the darkness and pad towards the hall closet. He takes out some sheets and blankets and presses himself to the doorframe to get back into the room, avoiding contact, as though he'd learned his lesson on the way out.

The blankets are then strewn over his bedroom architectural structures, the hidden corners protruding like castle pinnacles, just barely silhouetted against the rest of the black shadows. Cal seems pleased and steps back to admire his work briefly before dropping to his knees and crawling beneath the edge of the largest blanket, disappearing beneath the tented structure.

After a moment, in which I remain silently where I am, frozen with nerves and cluelessness, he sticks his head out of the opening and looks up at me. "It's a fort. Grab the lantern and get in here." His head vanishes again, the blanket flap falling back and sounding like the wind. It appears again though, after a nanosecond, and he adds, "Oh, and close the door."

I do all that I am told, too curious to do otherwise. My fingers close around the silver lantern handle and I push it in before me once I'm down on all fours, and scoot my way into this makeshift cavern, enchanted and fear-struck all at the same time.

Cal's sitting Indian-style at the far end of the fort, only the lower-half of his face touched by the lantern's abundance. I move closer to him, light in tow, and his entire form appears before me, the indents and angles of his frame the only parts touched by shadow. The moment I set down the lantern, though, he suddenly moves forward.

My fingers are still curled over the lamp's handle, cool to the touch and not malleable, even near the heat. I try to concentrate on the feel of that but lose all feeling in my body except where my lips are connected to his. _This isn't supposed to be happening_. But it is.

I let my eyes fall shut and lean into it, unaware that it'd been freezing cold all day compared to this warmth — yes, in California, of course. One of his hands clenches the front of my t-shirt and my fingers leave the lantern. I think it falls, but it's hard to tell just how dark it really is when your eyes are closed and there are New Year's Eve Chinese firecrackers mutely going off where your forehead touches his. Because he tastes like coffee and oranges and smells like the yellowing pages of a really good paperback, the kind you stay up all night reading because you just can't make yourself put it down.

I'm kissing Cal back like I never want to relive this day ever again, the pleas and apologies passed along with every brushing of our mouths pressed tightly together. And this is the very thing I was afraid of.

And then the kiss ends, as he pulls back and I prolong peeling back my eyelids to have to face him and the realities of yesterday that we're going to have to talk about.

"There," he says, so softly I'm not sure I really even heard it. I open my eyes. It's dark. "So I'm not going crazy." He's looking straight at me, face pulled together in something close to anger. "You kissed me back, Zach. Twice. This is the second time. And would you quit just _thinking_? I'm sick of you thinking at the top of your goddamn lungs and just not saying anything at all!"

I'm still at a loss for words. He closes his eyes and lowers his chin, shaking his head. "God, Zach." His front teeth are digging a trench in his lower lip, like they always do when he's close to tears and willing them back. He can't look at me when he whispers, "Stop waiting for the sky to fall."

Cal's eyes are large and round, a curled strand of hair falling over his forehead. And it wasn't supposed to be like this.

It's so much easier to pretend that he hadn't offered to tutor me for our Trig final next week, that he hadn't invited me over and ended up telling me about the burn scars that covered his back and neck from when his house across town was set on fire around him when he was thirteen. I wasn't allowed to pretend anymore that I hadn't touched his scars, leaned so close that his neck dipped low to press his lips to mine. That I hadn't kissed him back, unafraid. That I'd pulled back, kept my eyes down and walked out of his room and out his house, the California sun unforgiving and harsh against my shoulder blades where my shirt stuck to it with cold sweat. Most of all, I could no longer pretend that I didn't want this, any of it.

"Zach, please. I can't go around trying to pretend this never happened. I'm not like that. I… I could probably be falling very hard for you, but my wanting to hate you for walking away from our first kiss without so much as a glance back is kind of getting in the way here."

He's rambling. He's trying to escape the silence and the awkwardness and I don't know how to help him out of it. The fort seems to press down around us. We're sitting in the darkness and I can't see him. I can't tell if he's crying or smiling or playing some cruel joke. It's driving me insane.

"Just stop." And I know he's looking at me now. Even I can hear the way my voice struggles to stay level.

"…Why?"

"Because I want to believe you."

His fingers are on my face, brief and rough in one swipe of his knuckles against my cheek. "Then _believe me_."

And I want to. I really do.

It was never the others at school or my parents and brother, my teachers, our supervisor — it was never for them. They don't scare me. I'm not afraid of death threats and being kicked out or any of that bogus stereotypical gay teen angst. The only thing I'm afraid of is exactly what I find myself doing now: blindly closing the distance between us, holding his shoulders between my fingers and kissing him like the world's coming to an end.

I'm afraid of never being able to stop kissing him and giving in to this overwhelming emotion I refuse to give name or recognition to. It's too perfect.

It's silent this time, when we detach from one another simultaneously. Neither of us bother with trying to find the lantern; the dark suits us. He leaves the fort wordlessly, and this time I'm the one left helpless and alone, blind and cold. But he's better than I am: he returns.

"The only thing we have in the fridge is celery and things that are supposed to pass for food, which I promise I won't subject you to. So…" And here he switches on the lantern and presents the plate he'd hidden behind his back: "Ants on a log!"

"…What?"

The celery sticks are neatly cut in half, slathered with peanut butter and drizzled with raisins. But I understand. This is the only way he knows how to forgive — through the stomach. The days following his first fight with Sarah over whether Ender's Shadow or Ender's Game kicked more fictitious ass, well, let's just say the employee's lounge had never been so well-stocked.

And right now Cal looks so proud I have to turn the laugh that pushes its way past my lips into a cough as soon as it becomes audible.

He's trying hard not to smile, lips small and tightly pursed in an upward arch. "I'll have you know," he starts, very indignant, "That peanut butter is one of the four major food groups."

"What, peanut butter, spray cheese, ramen and Vanilla Coke?"

"No. Plain Coke works just as well."

The way he's looking at me tells me we aren't saying another word or making another move until I take a celery stick. I humor him. The peanut butter is the smooth Peter Pan kind, but even that won't make me admit that the sustenance is well-received.

"…Cal, why are we eating ants on a log in a homemade fort on a Friday night?"

He smirks. "What, not a good enough first date for you, Zach Attack?"

That shuts me up for the time being. He tries not to look too smug at the flush that wildfires up my neck and plays arsonist along various patches of my face. After a moment of recollection, I try again. "So what now?"

"Explain the situation to me as you see it. I'm sick of being the only one babbling."

I frown. It takes another couple of minutes for me to be able to string together an ample amount of words. "Well. We kissed?"

Cal helps himself to another stick of peanut butter and raisin-covered celery and raises it in a sort of mock toast. "Guess you are a rocket scientist after all. Keep going."

"…So. Yeah. You like me."

"Okay. Yes."

"And… I like you."

A flattered, abashed sort of smile touches his lips. "Oh yeah?"

"I speak no lies, my friend." I pause to watch his mouth stretch into a grin as he chuckles, continuing only after the sound's left ringing in my ears. "And. We're eating ants on a log in a homemade fort on a Friday night?"

"An extensive fact that not many can boast, mind you. And…?" he urges me on.

"And…" Here I struggle for words, grasping at thoughts that seem to be having great fun eluding my verbal skills. So I give voice to the only train of thought that makes itself lucid, pushed to the forefront, that singular brave soldier. "And… I really want to kiss you again?"

"Final answer?" His eyes tell me he's seriously, that he doesn't want to go through anything like the past 24 hours again, not if either of us can help it.

I reach out to him, let my knuckles be the ones to graze his cheek in reassurance, and close the gap between us, a bridge over the neatly stacked ants on a log. "It's the only answer."

And it's all my fault that it's a Friday night, with Cal sitting with me under a homemade fort, elbows and ankles accidentally denting peanut butter-smeared celery sticks.

I wouldn't have it any other way. After all, this is my fear. And my perfection.


End file.
